Rare photo postcard proves 1912 Fredericktown trainwreck

FREDERICKTOWN — The latest rare image I’ve dug up is of a trainwreck that took place in Fredericktown in 1912.

In fact, the incident is so little known, I’ve not been able to find a thing about it except this photo postcard. Unlike mass-printed postcards, which even after over a century can be fairly easy to find, real photo postcards (RPPCs) are much more rare.

Mass-produced postcards made with the lithographic printing process were fine for printing companies that could make large runs of thousands of cards at a time. But the real photo postcard process, invented by Kodak in 1903, allowed photographers to transfer their own photographs to postcard stock, thus presenting a high-resolution image.

Since the photographer could print either just a few or many postcards depending on how much demand there was, the RPPC became the preferred method for chronicling small-town America.

One such chronicler was the man who took this photograph. His trademark, printed on the address side of the card, gives his name as L. D. Shipley. Though his address is not given, his telephone number is given as “Citz. Phone 145 Fredericktown, Ohio.”

Longtime Knox Countians might perk up at a photographer named Shipley, as the Mount Vernon News famously employed Virgil Shipley as a photographer for over half a century, and Virgil was also from Fredericktown.

But, as far as I’ve been able to determine, L. D. Shipley was no relation. Furthermore, records of this Shipley are scarce except for a brief flourish of activity around this time, so it seems likely that this particular Shipley moved on from the area before Virgil was even born.

And, as for the wreck itself?

It wasn’t even mentioned in local newspapers, suggesting that the derailment seen here, though dramatic enough in appearance, with boxcars perched on the banks of the water, was relatively minor, with no injuries.

In all likelihood, L. D. Shipley probably didn’t sell too many copies of this photograph, and that’s probably why he soon moved on from this area, never dreaming that a legendary Knox County photographer was about to be born in Fredericktown with the same last name.